The Worst Person in the World: When Does Life Start?
At what age should you have it all figured out?
Julie isn’t a committer, one thing leads to another. She starts in medical but she is more drawn to the soul than the body causing her to cut her hair and pivot to psychology. She quickly dumps that and moves into photography which ends up being a bore to her leading her to the next thing.
The Worst Person in the World works as a collection of moments in a young person’s life divided up into 12 chapters. It is a character study looking at someone trying to work towards their full potential, except they don’t know what that is. The chapters vary from a few minutes to the length of a television episode. It allows the audience to feel Julie’s time slowly slipping away and the close moments show how certain life events leave an impact years later. Present-day Julie is in a long-term relationship with a man 15 years her senior. His stability in life allows her to continue to work out her self. In addition to her lack of commitment, the age gap is causing a rift in the relationship. He wants kids and she isn't ready yet.
Julie’s coming-of-age story looks at the life of an almost adult who doesn’t know at what point you are officially into adulthood. Is it having a child, owning a house, or having a career that officially makes you an adult? Director Joachim Trier makes it stand out with a sequence where everyone is frozen in time except for Julie and the barista she wants to be with Eivind. At this moment Julie believes in a promising future and that it’s not too late to start fresh. Shortly after Julie has a drug-induced dream confronting her greatest fears in life.
Renate Reinsve plays Julie so subtly almost like a child discovering the world. She is always ready to follow a new passion and embodies curiosity at its peak. Julie operates as an observer, not saying much but you can feel what she feels from her movements. She leans toward observation versus articulation. Julie knows she has limited time and wastes none of it on things she doesn’t want to do. In contrast, her long-term older boyfriend Aksel represents stability and commitment later in life that leads to a sense of self-fulfillment. Although she and Aksel have something special, she entertains the idea of seeing someone else because it is an escape from the inevitable motherhood she fears.
The soul of the film is exploring how life is about figuring it out. It speaks to this idea that at some point we are all destined to blossom into these superior beings we were told we would be at a young age leading to waiting instead of living.